


"Five Court Musicians and the songs they play"

by yankeemiho



Category: Keyakizaka46 (Band)
Genre: F/F, almost like a character analysis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25126810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yankeemiho/pseuds/yankeemiho
Summary: a look into the minds of goninbayashi
Relationships: Ishimori Nijika/Saitou Fuyuka
Kudos: 3





	"Five Court Musicians and the songs they play"

**Author's Note:**

> a repost from my old ao3 account, i like this one a lot so im uploading again
> 
> i wrote this n published it originally like around November 2019?? so its been a while since then

Oda Nana and her friends are all somewhere south of twenty-two and pretending they’re not just a bunch of kids living without supervision. They’re old enough to be let into bars but young enough that they all still fly back home for Christmas. That’s where they're at in life.

She’s going to look back on this and tell stories about the good old days— her part-time job and all the time in the world and a new exciting plan every other weekend— and without a doubt, she’s going to forget the bad parts. 

Because she’ll be looking back from the comfort of the place where everything has worked out; and yes, she’s here right now with the parties and sleeping in on a Monday and a road trip just because— but she’ll forget the uncertainty. 

How it follows her into every bar and on every fun plan and sometimes she’s able to dance hard enough that it shakes off for just a moment, but usually it stays. An all-consuming worry of “What will my life be like? Will the things I hope for happen? If I work hard and keep believing, will I also find the luck I need?” 

Yesterday she climbed back in bed and cried. 

“What’s wrong?” Shiori asked. 

“I’m scared.” 

“Scared of what?” 

And once again, Nana felt the great uncertainty as she tried to think of the words.

“Scared that my dreams won’t actually come true. Scared of how it will feel to watch it happen to other people if they don’t.” 

And that was unusual for her, the hopeful one. But she settled into that feeling for about two more hours, a great cry and the dog’s head on her leg and then her natural optimism came along and buoyed her once again. 

Oda Nana looked around at her bedroom in Tokyo and was rocked by the great privilege of being a person allowed to pursue what they feel called to at all— she didn’t get here on her own.

And she felt young and old and terrible and fine and ordinary and special. She felt very lucky and then suddenly she felt very worried about her luck.

She’s in that in-between space of life that all the movies get written about. Coming of age in a city of movies, but she’s not just trying to watch it. She’s trying to live it, too.

* * *

Ishimori Nijika learned at a young age how to hold on to a thing. Dreams, friendships, a future that people told her was too difficult to be worth trying. She wrapped them twice around her fist and held on for dear life. Maybe it will be hard, she’d often think, but that won’t be enough to stop her.

And she studied and she saved and she called her friends long after they might have grown apart, and placed value on things that lasted. 

But her life is not a time card and she doesn't get extra points for hours put into a piece of work. And after years of holding on to things that too often get left behind, she had to teach herself something far more difficult.

How to let go.

Learning to let go was slower, sadder, and more freeing than she had ever thought. It required patience and missteps and that horrible feeling when she thought she wasn’t hanging on anymore until, by mistake, she might uncover one last hidden hope. 

Today she heard the song that sounds like 5th year of Elementary and 4 kids in the car and a cabin in Miyagi. She felt sick for just a moment with missing her childhood until she remembered that everyone was all the better for having let go.

She uncurled her fingers from around the memory and it was harder than all the times she held on tightly. But she was surprised by how easily it floated away.

To miss it all now is so rare it’s almost an enjoyment; the freedom to pick up a memory and smile, knowing that at any moment she is finally strong enough to lay it back down

All five of them are in the car on the ride home and Nijika’s head is resting on Fuyuka’s shoulder, just barely, just a bit. And they hit the turn and entire car tips forward and Nijika almost wakes up, but then Fuyuka’s hand is cradling her forehead and resting it back in place. Nijika’s eyes stay shut and she trusts her— Fuuchan’s hand to hold her in place for the rest of the way home.

And that is who Fuyuka has been in Nijika’s life since they had met. A person to catch her before she even has the chance to fall. A comforting presence; the knowledge she can rest here, and someone will keep her safe while she does.

All the times Nijika almost wakes up and realizes she doesn’t have to: Saito Fuyuka is up, and she’s looking out for her.

Nijika can keep on sleeping. Fuuchan is beside her. And everything is going to be just fine.

  
  
  


* * *

One of Habu Mizuho’s earliest memories is of sitting in the back seat of a car. She’s not sure if it was her mom’s or her dad’s, but she remembers looking out the window at the pink of the Sakura trees lining the streets they drove through to get to her house. It was spring. 

And she remembers, so clearly, wondering if she was able to force herself to remember something. 

She thought to herself, as an experiment, “remember this moment forever.”

And she does.

She doesn’t remember what she was wearing or exactly how old she was or where she was heading back from. She doesn’t even necessarily remember how she was feeling, other than introspective and curious, she supposes. What she does remember is the strength of her own will, and deciding to test it. 

She would even go so far as to say her disturbing ability to recall such buried memories and the strength of her own will are perhaps the two main calling cards of her personality. They are certainly the two that have gotten her into the most trouble in life.

She would go on to do many things just to prove to herself that she could. And she would remember most of what was said to her, and maybe even the date of when it was said and what she was feeling and why it came about. 

And as much as she’s struggled with remembering painful things, old friends’ birthdays and each redacted I love you and what she wore on every significant day of her life... as much as she’s raged against her own memory and wished things got foggier with time like they seem to for many people, she’s able to say this:

She doesn’t remember anything about math. Not a thing. And she spent years drilling that stuff into her head.

But she remembers sitting in the back seat of a car twenty-something years ago simply because she told herself she would. 

So maybe there’s a reason for the things she doesn't forget. Maybe the strength of her own will is at play here, too.

* * *

Just before Saito Fuyuka turned twenty-three she hesitated, as if the world needed her permission. 

“Not yet,” she said to herself. “I’ll turn twenty-three when I want to.”

The leap from twenty-two to twenty-three seemed so much bigger than the gaps from previous years. Twenty-two was a girl with a part-time job at the dog cafe with her best friend and 5 people in a three-bedroom apartment. But twenty-three felt like a grown-up. A real adult.

So it turns out monumental things are always happening, right under her nose, no permission necessary. Can you believe the calendar had the audacity to change dates in the middle of the night, while she was sleeping? One morning she woke up twenty-three. Just like that.

And there, in hesitation, she hunkered down and made camp.

Twenty three? Not for her. Not just yet. Haven’t got enough of a read on the situation. 

But she remembers Nijika, just a voice on the other side of her bathroom door at the time, telling her not to worry.

“Twenty three looks good on you, I can just tell,” she said.

She’d think about that over the next year when she butted up against career rejections and disappointments, when she felt lost and when she had breakthroughs. But especially when she fell in love.

Fuyuka would remember how sure Nijika had sounded when she said it.

“Twenty-three looks good on you.” 

And damn, would you look at that. Nijika was right.

A year later, twenty-three winds down not much different to how it began. The same roommates, same girlfriend, and the Christmas tree still up in the living room even though it's already February. The same apartment, only there’s another dog now.

And the same drive to Neru’s house at dusk, same traffic, only there’s someone in the seat next to her holding her hand most nights now. And there’s a new Nogizaka album that she listens to, and the late-night radio show she always listens to is still making her cry but for different reasons.

Fuyuka is still wearing those same shoes she’s been wearing all year and she's starting to wear them out. Nijika tells her that when she shows up in her dream, Fuyuka’s shoes have holes in them. 

And Fuyuka is doing well, picking up speed, still covering her face and crying because she’s not exactly where she’d hoped to be, but hey— she’s twenty-three, who is?

Naako and Pe are over most nights to bother Nana and Fuyuka finds herself waking up early for the dream job, earlier and earlier lately. The year has already seen two weddings and two bachelorette parties. Congratulations to Risa and Neru, and to Nijika’s cousin in Miyagi. Maybe one day, it’ll be her own wedding that she attends.

And she never ever checks up on her old friends’ Instagrams and she still slaps everyone else’s knees when she laughs instead of her own and she’s still racing time and losing. Still running without stopping to catch her breath. 

There’s a reason Fuyuka's shoes have holes.

* * *

All her memories of her mother from when Sato Shiori was a kid are of her in business suits with long black slacks and shoulder pads. Her brother was taller than her and smarter than her and growing up his life seemed more fun than hers, so she’d throw on a baseball cap and follow him and his friends to the park. 

She’d listen in on conference meetings where her mother sat at the head of the table and all the men that reported to her waited their turn to speak.

And once and only once, Shiori cried to her mother about her height, she absolutely hated being in the back row of every class picture with the boys.

Her mother told her, “Shiichan, one day you’re going to be glad you’re able to look a man in the eye.”

And no one ever said it but somewhere along the road she learned in the backwards way of kids trying to sort something out: the more a woman acted like a man, the more powerful she was. 

A few years later she painted over her pink walls with a cream colour. She stopped wearing dresses because she thought she looked silly— not pretty enough to pull off prettiness and awkward enough to look foolish if she tried. 

But when it was just her and her friends in the safety of her driveway and under the guise of pretend, she’d call out all the names of who she really wanted to be.

“Tonight, I wanna be just like Katara from Avatar!”

“Why her?

“I don’t know, she’s pretty?”

"You wanted to be like Princess Bubblegum last time."

"Honestly, I still do."

It took graduating high school and moving out of her hometown for her to realize that so many of the characters that she gravitated towards and admired were feminine because she wanted to be feminine, too. Most importantly, feminine AND strong.

She wanted to how to learn to command a room like her mother, but in skirts instead of slacks. And she didn’t want to be considered any weaker for it just because it’s what she liked wearing.

It took her longer than she’d like to admit to understand that she could be powerful and still feminine. That the two didn’t have anything to do with each other at all.

So if anyone ever wonders why she wears so many dresses: she’s making up for lost time.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> twt is @risaponist come say hi


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